Stereotypes bias social class perception from faces: The roles of race, gender, affect, and attractiveness

Abstract

People quickly form consequential impressions of others’ social class standing from nonverbal cues, including facial appearance. Extant research shows that perceivers judge faces that appear more positive, attractive, and healthy as higher-class, in line with stereotypes associating high class standing with happiness, attractiveness, and better wellbeing (which bear a kernel of truth). A wealth of research moreover demonstrates strong stereotypical associations between social class and both race and gender. The current work bridged these areas of inquiry to explore (1) intersectional biases in social class impressions from faces and (2) how associations between social class and attractiveness/health and affect can be used to shift social class impressions. Our studies found evidence of race and gender stereotypes impacting British perceivers’ social class judgments, with Black (vs. White and Asian) and female (vs. male) faces judged as lower in class. Furthermore, manipulating faces’ emotion expression shifted judgments of their social class, with variations in magnitude by faces’ race, such that emotion expressions shifted judgments of Black faces more than White faces. Finally, manipulating faces’ complexion to appear healthier/more attractive shifted social class judgments, with the magnitude of this varying by faces’ and perceivers’ race, suggesting a role of perceptual expertise. These findings demonstrate that stereotypes bias social class impressions and can be used to manipulate them.

Social judgments from faces and bodies.

“…This suggests that the subtle static facial cues to social class (i.e., neutral faces’ affect, perceived health/attractiveness; Bjornsdottir & Rule, 2017) may not be as powerful in driving perceptions as more salient dynamic cues, such as emotion expressions. Indeed, extant research demonstrates that emotion expressions successfully shift judgments of the same individual’s social class standing, in line with valenced stereotypes (i.e., the same face is judged as high in social class more often when expressing a positive emotion and less often when expressing a negative emotion, compared to neutral; Bjornsdottir & Beacon, 2024; Bjornsdottir & Rule, 2020).…”